Charlottesville

"We condemn in the strongest possible terms the egregious display of hatred, bigotry, and violence on many sides. On many sides. It's been going on for a long time in our country. Not Donald Trump, not Barack Obama. This has been going on for a long time."

That statement was the response of the President of the United States to the violence surrounding a white supremacist rally that had been planned for yesterday in Charlottesville, Virginia. The rally was cancelled by the state after Governor Terry McAuliffe declared a state of emergency in response to the breakout of brawls between white nationalists and the counter-protesters who assembled to challenge them. Tensions have remained high since, in particular after a rally-attender drove his car into a crowd of counter-protesters, killing one and wounding more than a dozen others. Trump's statement was illustrative of a number of his personal flaws, but I would like to emphasize less the imperfections of Donald Trump than the exact effect this sort of "condemnation" has.

Trump, it will be remembered, has a long history of coyly not-quite-disavowing figures in the far right and making racial appeals. He developed a curious case of amnesia regarding the history of David Duke, pointedly refused to condemn anti-semitic threats made by supporters against a reporter covering his wife, dismissed the Black Lives Matter movement as "looking for trouble,"  repeatedly linked immigration and "the inner-cities" to criminality, cited a judge's "Mexican heritage" as a reason he should not be allowed to preside in a lawsuit against Trump University, and lest we forget he also was the premier champion of the birther movement for several years.

The most alarming and disheartening thing about that list is that it is a very, very partial one. What puts Trump's statement quoted at the top in the tradition of those other comments is that it explicitly refused to call out the white supremacists as the cause of the violence. Those in attendance were seen shouting adapted Nazi slogans like "blood and soil," and "Heil Trump," adding a few of their own, including "White Lives Matter," and "Fuck you, faggots." They surrounded and attempted to intimidate counter-protesters. At the end of the day, one of their number ran a car into a crowd.

That level of repulsive violence and hate being openly established as their creed, Trump proceeded to implicitly equate their position with those of the counter-protesters. "On many sides" he said. Twice. He may as well have responded to the Nazi invasion of Poland by saying that everyone got a bit heated and it was time to calm down. The purpose of the rally was to provoke and frighten. A feigned neutrality on the part of the president only serves to embolden those promoting hateful ideas.

Earlier today, in response to a chorus of criticism of his non-denunciation, the White House added a statement including white supremacists in the condemnation the president issued. Yet the omission of the words "white supremacy" was not, as we have already noted, the primary issue with the original statement. It is the equation of white supremacy with those opposing white supremacy. This is not a "two sides" issue. When the position of one side is predicated explicitly on violence and intimidation, both sides are not to blame when violence ensues. It has been a legal and moral principle for millennia that self-defense is a reasonable justification for the use of force. When one side attacks, both sides are not to blame. Pretending otherwise is enabling the aggressor. That is what Trump is doing.

In the national discussion regarding Trump and his relationship with extremists in the last two years, one thing that has been ignored is that those defending Trump and those opposing him are not agreeing because they are talking about different things. Trump says that he thinks racism and neo-Nazis and white supremacists are bad, and a number of people will point to that as proof that he isn't helping these groups. But when he repeatedly associates nonwhites with criminality, when he attacks immigrants as taking things from "real" Americans, when he espouses a militaristic and aggressive view of the world, when his administration attacks any program or law designed to weaken racism or homophobia - when, in short, he adopts a significant portion of the platform of white supremacy and the alt-right/fascist movement - we can hardly be astonished that the leaders of that movement support him.

He can denounce the name of the ideology or claim that it isn't what he believes as much as he likes, but when he keeps doing things that those who do espouse that ideology want and when he keeps giving room for that movement to flourish under his aegis, he is culpable. The unspoken truth here is that Trump will never denounce white supremacy and white supremacists with a full voice, because people who have the political attitudes and vocabulary of white supremacists but can't bring themselves to espouse hate openly are a large fraction of his support. This problem is not going away. I applaud the counter-protesters who held their ground yesterday. If fascists and white supremacists are going to march in the streets, they need to be opposed.

We are rapidly approaching the point where we will all find it necessary to take sides. The groups represented at that rally are increasingly numerous, and their views are increasingly influential and represented in government. The political will necessary to oppose them and do so firmly is what is required, and only relentless activism can produce that will in elected officials.